We are specifically moving to an area where there will be more outdoor opportunities for our boys to have unmonitored free play. And we’re also specifically moving closer so they’ll be around cousins with whom we share similar values. I want them to have that freedom to have to figure stuff out. We try to practice this as much a possible at home — even just with things like sibling relationships. I very rarely take sides & try to get them to unite around a common “enemy” (me 😆). But I have to work pretty hard to find ways to give them extra independence and I worry about neighbors etc… It’s hard when kids just don’t play outside much anymore.
As a kid, doing things like being allowed to bike to the library by myself, learning how to adult in college (like learning the hard way about overdrafts! Ha. I didn’t forget)
My 3yo recently asked me, "Who makes bread?" I thought about it for a minute, then I said, "Let's try!" So I looked up a recipe and we made some bread, which I had never done before. It wasn't great, but I learned some things, so next time I think it will turn out better. One of the most valuable things my mom gave me was an attitude of "I don't know how to do this, but I can learn. And if I don't do it perfectly, what's the worst that can happen?" It's a helpful way to assess whether to take on a project. In many areas of my life, I'm not afraid of failure *as such* because I know how to think about what failure would actually look like and assess whether it's actually a bad thing. What if these seeds don't grow? Well, I've lost a few dollars and enjoyed some time in the sun, and probably learned some things about gardening. What if I hold the drill bit while trying to remove it? Well, I could tear up my hand, so let's not do that one, let's be more careful about learning how to do it correctly. This is something I hope to instill in my kids.
"Where do you push the edge of your mastery as an adult and get comfortable with struggling? Is it a solo or shared endeavor?"
This question resonated with me because I just got back from skiing at Whistler (BC) for the day, and I only learned to ski about 5 years ago, in my mid-thirties. I sometimes fall back on bad habits, and I sometimes still fall, but it's something my husband learned as a kid (and is fantastic at) and we got our kids lessons many years ago and they are absolutely naturals.
So, right now...it's a solo endeavor because I mostly ski by myself. Their abilities FAR outweigh my own, but that's okay, because I had a goal, I learned how to do it, I can do it well enough to manage blues on one of the best ski hills in North America, and I'm proud of that. I still struggle with pushing myself (especially because I'm alone most of the time) but I talk to myself down a challenging run even still and force my body to make decisions as I'm going, not my brain (by overthinking). I hope to be challenging myself my whole life in whatever way I am able to!
Mar 14·edited Mar 14Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
I'm excited to hear the Stanford debate will be happening when I'm in town. I wrote my final paper for a law school course on the developments with MAiD in Canada by drawing on a lot of the resources you’ve referenced recently, with much of the philosophical framework coming from Snead’s “What it Means to be Human” and your work on interdependence. And The Deep Places, which I first heard about here, has helped me think through my own family’s experience of suffering through uncertain chronic illness more powerfully than any other account. I look forward to hearing the debate after thinking through some of these ideas with the Other Feminisms community. Hope to meet you there!
My kids are 8 and 5 so we are definitely thinking about risk taking for growth! Here's what that looks like now in our family.
- The 8 year old twins have demonstrated they can cross the street safely and have free rein of our suburban block (6 houses, 3 with kids and 1 surrogate grandparent). They have free rein of the yards of the other houses with kids and right now there are lots of pickup baseball/dodgeball games, remote control car demolition derbies, and Nerf wars.
- The 5 year old is allowed to cross the street with a parent or older sibling. She is allowed to play in our yard with minimal supervision (I am often doing other outdoor tasks or checking on her through windows)
- All 3 kids have bikes (with helmets), homemafe foam swords and cardboard shields, Nerf guns, and a junky tent I bought off Craigslist to use as a "fort" during the non-snowy months (during snow months they build their own forts). Tree climbing is allowed (with a spotter until they get the hang of it) and tree house design discussions with Dad are currently underway.
- Despite the appalling lack of sidewalks in our community, we walk and bike where we can. In anticipation of them being allowed to walk/bike home alone in coming years, I am having the 8 year Olds practice deciding when it's safe for ALL OF US to cross the street together. This helps them understand that not everyone moves at their speed!
- Finally, when it comes to extracurricular and school, failure is an option. For example, last week I found out that they both skipped some of their piano lessons homework because they didn't know how to do it. They ended up hearing a lecture from their teacher and we talked about what they could do instead next time (ask Mom! Call their teacher on the phone and ask for clarification! Ask each other! Etc) Same with sports - we make sure they have the gear they need, but packing it for games is their responsibility. If they forget, they figure it out (borrow a batting helmet, drink water from the fountain because they forgot their water bottle) etc. They mostly do rise to the occasion when we set clear expectations.
> (Were adults deliberately clearing space or simply unaware/absent?)
From my childhood, I remember a sense that when we complained to a grownup about a conflict, the grownup didn’t always *care to understand* the conflict, which is different from *not taking a side*.
For Leah and others who have deliberately chosen to live in a neighborhood with large families - how did you find it? It seems to be getting more and more rare all the time.
In my current neighborhood, I rarely see other families out on the street. Occasionally we'll meet people at the park, but they usually drive there instead of walking half a mile.
I grew up playing in the front yard with all the neighbors' kids, but I don't see that anywhere anymore. I live in Southern California, but I work from home, so I'm seriously considering moving elsewhere if I could find a neighborhood more like what I remember.
> If you have kids, where and at what age do your kids get to try out self-governance and make real mistakes?
A friend and I were just talking yesterday about this tension in parenting our preschool-aged kids. Our kids are old enough to begin understanding the consequences of their actions but not necessarily old/experienced/mature enough to predict others’ responses or restrain themselves consistently. When (or up to what point) do we let them work it out among themselves? When do we intervene and remind them how to ask first/take turns/use gentle hands? At this age I think there’s a balance to be struck. Ask me again in a few years, haha. But I’m working toward finding/creating a community where young kids are allowed to learn-by-failing their emerging social skills.
What are some of your earliest experiences of being trusted to try out self-governance with your peers? What worked well or badly about the space you were given? (Were adults deliberately clearing space or simply unaware/absent?)
Playing with neighborhood kids when I was a child, we played our own games and made up our own rules. My parents weren't part of that, my only rule was that I was limited to playing nearby the house.
Where do you push the edge of your mastery as an adult and get comfortable with struggling? Is it a solo or shared endeavor?
Learning liturgy in my faith tradition. There are guidebooks, but funny enough, I bought a children's play set to practice. It's meant to teach children the tradition, but I use it to practice the tasks I undertake. I practice alone at home, but in the real world, it isn't a solo endeavor, there are other people who are there to help and guide.
When I arrived at the ENS as a 20 years old I joined the Catholic youth group, which was run almost entirely by the students with some ponctual advice from an Assomptionist brother. It was a life changing experience for me in many ways. Being put in a position of leadership and responsibility forced me to make a deep commitment to the group. For the fist time, I discovered that I liked to lead, and liked being part of a group. This group was part of a wider movement called Chrétiens en Grandes Ecoles ("Christians in Great Schools" is a literal translation but it's at University level), which is deeply inspired by Jesuit pedagogy and follows this principle from the local to the national level, so it was definitely a deliberate choice from (older) adults. And it worked great, both as a learning experience for leadership and for faith.
I've often regretted that most youth Catholic groups were not run in the same way - I'm sure the drop off we see so often with teenagers and young adults would not happen if they were trusted with real positions of leadership, both in their own age groups and in the wider Church.
We are specifically moving to an area where there will be more outdoor opportunities for our boys to have unmonitored free play. And we’re also specifically moving closer so they’ll be around cousins with whom we share similar values. I want them to have that freedom to have to figure stuff out. We try to practice this as much a possible at home — even just with things like sibling relationships. I very rarely take sides & try to get them to unite around a common “enemy” (me 😆). But I have to work pretty hard to find ways to give them extra independence and I worry about neighbors etc… It’s hard when kids just don’t play outside much anymore.
As a kid, doing things like being allowed to bike to the library by myself, learning how to adult in college (like learning the hard way about overdrafts! Ha. I didn’t forget)
My 3yo recently asked me, "Who makes bread?" I thought about it for a minute, then I said, "Let's try!" So I looked up a recipe and we made some bread, which I had never done before. It wasn't great, but I learned some things, so next time I think it will turn out better. One of the most valuable things my mom gave me was an attitude of "I don't know how to do this, but I can learn. And if I don't do it perfectly, what's the worst that can happen?" It's a helpful way to assess whether to take on a project. In many areas of my life, I'm not afraid of failure *as such* because I know how to think about what failure would actually look like and assess whether it's actually a bad thing. What if these seeds don't grow? Well, I've lost a few dollars and enjoyed some time in the sun, and probably learned some things about gardening. What if I hold the drill bit while trying to remove it? Well, I could tear up my hand, so let's not do that one, let's be more careful about learning how to do it correctly. This is something I hope to instill in my kids.
"Where do you push the edge of your mastery as an adult and get comfortable with struggling? Is it a solo or shared endeavor?"
This question resonated with me because I just got back from skiing at Whistler (BC) for the day, and I only learned to ski about 5 years ago, in my mid-thirties. I sometimes fall back on bad habits, and I sometimes still fall, but it's something my husband learned as a kid (and is fantastic at) and we got our kids lessons many years ago and they are absolutely naturals.
So, right now...it's a solo endeavor because I mostly ski by myself. Their abilities FAR outweigh my own, but that's okay, because I had a goal, I learned how to do it, I can do it well enough to manage blues on one of the best ski hills in North America, and I'm proud of that. I still struggle with pushing myself (especially because I'm alone most of the time) but I talk to myself down a challenging run even still and force my body to make decisions as I'm going, not my brain (by overthinking). I hope to be challenging myself my whole life in whatever way I am able to!
I'm excited to hear the Stanford debate will be happening when I'm in town. I wrote my final paper for a law school course on the developments with MAiD in Canada by drawing on a lot of the resources you’ve referenced recently, with much of the philosophical framework coming from Snead’s “What it Means to be Human” and your work on interdependence. And The Deep Places, which I first heard about here, has helped me think through my own family’s experience of suffering through uncertain chronic illness more powerfully than any other account. I look forward to hearing the debate after thinking through some of these ideas with the Other Feminisms community. Hope to meet you there!
My kids are 8 and 5 so we are definitely thinking about risk taking for growth! Here's what that looks like now in our family.
- The 8 year old twins have demonstrated they can cross the street safely and have free rein of our suburban block (6 houses, 3 with kids and 1 surrogate grandparent). They have free rein of the yards of the other houses with kids and right now there are lots of pickup baseball/dodgeball games, remote control car demolition derbies, and Nerf wars.
- The 5 year old is allowed to cross the street with a parent or older sibling. She is allowed to play in our yard with minimal supervision (I am often doing other outdoor tasks or checking on her through windows)
- All 3 kids have bikes (with helmets), homemafe foam swords and cardboard shields, Nerf guns, and a junky tent I bought off Craigslist to use as a "fort" during the non-snowy months (during snow months they build their own forts). Tree climbing is allowed (with a spotter until they get the hang of it) and tree house design discussions with Dad are currently underway.
- Despite the appalling lack of sidewalks in our community, we walk and bike where we can. In anticipation of them being allowed to walk/bike home alone in coming years, I am having the 8 year Olds practice deciding when it's safe for ALL OF US to cross the street together. This helps them understand that not everyone moves at their speed!
- Finally, when it comes to extracurricular and school, failure is an option. For example, last week I found out that they both skipped some of their piano lessons homework because they didn't know how to do it. They ended up hearing a lecture from their teacher and we talked about what they could do instead next time (ask Mom! Call their teacher on the phone and ask for clarification! Ask each other! Etc) Same with sports - we make sure they have the gear they need, but packing it for games is their responsibility. If they forget, they figure it out (borrow a batting helmet, drink water from the fountain because they forgot their water bottle) etc. They mostly do rise to the occasion when we set clear expectations.
> (Were adults deliberately clearing space or simply unaware/absent?)
From my childhood, I remember a sense that when we complained to a grownup about a conflict, the grownup didn’t always *care to understand* the conflict, which is different from *not taking a side*.
For Leah and others who have deliberately chosen to live in a neighborhood with large families - how did you find it? It seems to be getting more and more rare all the time.
In my current neighborhood, I rarely see other families out on the street. Occasionally we'll meet people at the park, but they usually drive there instead of walking half a mile.
I grew up playing in the front yard with all the neighbors' kids, but I don't see that anywhere anymore. I live in Southern California, but I work from home, so I'm seriously considering moving elsewhere if I could find a neighborhood more like what I remember.
Any tips?
> If you have kids, where and at what age do your kids get to try out self-governance and make real mistakes?
A friend and I were just talking yesterday about this tension in parenting our preschool-aged kids. Our kids are old enough to begin understanding the consequences of their actions but not necessarily old/experienced/mature enough to predict others’ responses or restrain themselves consistently. When (or up to what point) do we let them work it out among themselves? When do we intervene and remind them how to ask first/take turns/use gentle hands? At this age I think there’s a balance to be struck. Ask me again in a few years, haha. But I’m working toward finding/creating a community where young kids are allowed to learn-by-failing their emerging social skills.
What are some of your earliest experiences of being trusted to try out self-governance with your peers? What worked well or badly about the space you were given? (Were adults deliberately clearing space or simply unaware/absent?)
Playing with neighborhood kids when I was a child, we played our own games and made up our own rules. My parents weren't part of that, my only rule was that I was limited to playing nearby the house.
Where do you push the edge of your mastery as an adult and get comfortable with struggling? Is it a solo or shared endeavor?
Learning liturgy in my faith tradition. There are guidebooks, but funny enough, I bought a children's play set to practice. It's meant to teach children the tradition, but I use it to practice the tasks I undertake. I practice alone at home, but in the real world, it isn't a solo endeavor, there are other people who are there to help and guide.
When I arrived at the ENS as a 20 years old I joined the Catholic youth group, which was run almost entirely by the students with some ponctual advice from an Assomptionist brother. It was a life changing experience for me in many ways. Being put in a position of leadership and responsibility forced me to make a deep commitment to the group. For the fist time, I discovered that I liked to lead, and liked being part of a group. This group was part of a wider movement called Chrétiens en Grandes Ecoles ("Christians in Great Schools" is a literal translation but it's at University level), which is deeply inspired by Jesuit pedagogy and follows this principle from the local to the national level, so it was definitely a deliberate choice from (older) adults. And it worked great, both as a learning experience for leadership and for faith.
I've often regretted that most youth Catholic groups were not run in the same way - I'm sure the drop off we see so often with teenagers and young adults would not happen if they were trusted with real positions of leadership, both in their own age groups and in the wider Church.